Paper Boats | CBSE Class 7 English Notes

This note covers Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Paper Boats": the pre-reading tasks, a part-by-part summary, the speaker and setting, the child's hopes and imagination, the imagery and figures of speech, the tone, mood and form, the themes and message, and answers to every textbook activity, from the word tasks to the listening task, the diary entry and the riddles.

Who wrote "Paper Boats" and what is the poem about?

"Paper Boats" is a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, whose name is printed at the end of it. It is in Poorvi, the Textbook of English for Grade 7, in Unit 3, Dreams and Discoveries. It comes between the story "My Brother's Great Invention" and "North, South, East, West".

The unit captures the wonder and imagination of children. The book's introduction says the poem uses "the imagery of paper boats to symbolise dreams and aspirations", and that students will reflect on "the joy of simple pleasures" and the wish to connect with the unknown.

In the poem, a child sends paper boats down a stream every day, hoping that someone far away will find them, and at night dreams that they sail on under the stars. The poem is short, printed as eight groups of prose-like lines.

What do the pre-reading tasks and the first picture show?

The pre-reading page, "Let us do these activities before we read", has two tasks and a picture. The picture shows a narrow stream winding through green meadows towards distant hills.

Leafy trees, tall grasses, brown-tipped reeds and small pink and white flowers line its banks. Three paper boats float down the stream, the nearest one the largest, and each is folded from paper covered in handwriting.

How can task I be answered?

These questions ask for the student's own ideas, so the answers below are one possible set.

1. What comes to mind when thinking about paper boats? One possible answer: folding an old sheet of paper into a boat on a rainy day and watching it bob away on the water.

2. What might someone hope for when sending a paper boat down a stream? One possible answer: that it floats a long way without sinking, and perhaps that it carries a wish or a message to someone far away.

3. What might the poem be about? One possible prediction: a child who floats paper boats and wonders where they will go and who will find them.

How are the highlighted words in task II matched?

The paragraph describes a child who loves a stream near the grandparents' house and the busy river it joins. Its highlighted words match the meanings in the box like this:

Running, bulging and lading appear in the poem itself, and so does bury, the base form of burying.

What happens in the poem, part by part?

The poem has eight groups of lines, and each group is a single sentence. It moves from the child's play beside the stream in the daytime to the child's dreams at night.

Groups 1 and 2: floating and naming the boats

Day after day, the child floats paper boats one at a time down the running stream, a stream that flows along quickly.

Each boat carries the child's name and village, written in big black letters. Large, dark letters like these would be easy to read.

Group 3: the hope of being known

The child wishes that a boat will reach a strange land, an unknown place far away, and that whoever finds it will learn who sent it. The writing on each boat makes this possible, so every boat becomes a small message to the world.

Group 4: a load of shiuli flowers

The child loads the little boats with shiuli flowers from the family garden. The poem calls them "blooms of the dawn", and the child hopes they will be "carried safely to land in the night".

Groups 5 and 6: clouds that race the boats

As the child launches the boats, the child looks up and sees little clouds "setting the white bulging sails". The clouds look like sailing boats in the sky, with sails that swell outwards.

The child wonders which unseen playmate in the sky has sent these cloud-boats to race the paper boats. In the poem, this sentence ends with an exclamation mark, full of delight.

Groups 7 and 8: the boats sail on in a dream

At night, with his face hidden in his arms, the child dreams of the paper boats drifting on and on beneath the midnight stars.

In this dream the boats have new sailors, the fairies of sleep, and a new cargo, or lading: baskets full of dreams. The poem ends here, with the day's game turned into a dream.

Who is the speaker, and where is the poem set?

The speaker

The speaker is a child who speaks as "I" from the first line to the last. The questions after the poem call it a poem about "the imagination of a child", and the summary task refers to the speaker as "the poet" and "he".

The child lives in a village and has a garden at home. No real companion is mentioned; the only playmate is an imagined one in the sky. The child is patient, sending boats day after day, hopeful, and imaginative, turning clouds and sleep into friends.

The setting

The setting is mostly natural and outdoors: a running stream, the family garden, and the open sky with its clouds. The poem also has a setting in time. It begins in the daytime, when the boats are launched, and ends at night, under the "midnight stars".

The village is never named, which keeps the scene simple and easy for any reader to picture.

What does the picture beside the poem show?

A leafy tree covered in small white flowers with orange-red centres stands on a grassy bank. On the stream, two paper boats folded from written-on paper float along. The nearer boat is filled with white flowers with orange-red centres, and a few more of these flowers drift on the water.

What does the child hope for and imagine?

Each thing the child really does leads to a hope or a piece of imagination. The table ties each one to the words that show it.

The hopes grow wider as the poem goes on, from being known by a stranger to the sky and the night themselves joining the game.

The poem never says whether anyone finds the boats. The hopes stay hopes, and this keeps the poem wishful rather than certain.

What does the imagery of the poem suggest?

Imagery means words that create pictures in the reader's mind. Most images in this poem are things to see, and they follow the day into the night.

Dawn: "blooms of the dawn"

Calling the shiuli flowers "blooms of the dawn" links them to the first light of the day, suggesting freshness, purity and a new beginning. Yet the child hopes they will land safely in the night, so the boats' journey stretches from dawn into darkness.

Clouds as sails

With clouds as white bulging sails, the sky becomes a second stream, and the child's game spreads from the water to the sky.

Night and the midnight stars

The boats float on "under the midnight stars". Stars suggest how vast the world is, far bigger than one village stream. The night here is not frightening; it is calm, the time when dreams carry on the day's hopes.

The fairies of sleep

Sleep becomes fairies who sail the boats. By night the boats carry dreams in place of the flowers they carried by day.

Which figures of speech does the poet use?

The poem uses a handful of devices, each of which adds to its gentle, dreamy feel.

What else does the language show?

The word "I" opens four of the eight groups, and "my paper boats" appears three times. This repetition keeps the child's own voice and treasured boats at the centre.

The poem also builds a contrast between dawn and night, and between waking play and sleep. It has no simile.

What are the tone, mood and form of the poem?

Tone

The tone, the speaker's attitude, is gentle and wishful. The words are soft and simple: little boats, flowers, little clouds, fairies. The word hope appears twice, and the child's wishes are never angry or demanding. Even the race with the clouds is described with quiet delight.

Mood

The mood, the feeling the poem creates in the reader, is thoughtful. The reader is led to wonder, with the child, where the boats will go and who might find them. The quiet ending under the stars leaves a calm, dreamy feeling.

Form

The poem's form looks more like prose than verse, with each sentence-long group filling two or three printed lines. There is no rhyme scheme and no fixed number of lines in a group.

The child speaks in the first person and mostly in the present tense: "I float", "I write", "I load", "I launch". The music of the poem comes from repetition and the flow of its sentences rather than from rhyme.

The words are mostly everyday ones, with a few less common ones such as lading and shiuli.

What are the themes and message of the poem?

Innocence

The child's simple trust that a stranger will find a paper boat, and the joy taken in a small game, show a child's innocence.

Imagination

The child sees clouds as sails, imagines a playmate in the sky and pictures fairies sailing the boats. Imagination turns an ordinary stream, garden and sky into a world full of friends.

Playfulness

Floating boats every day and imagining a race between the boats and the clouds show playfulness. The poem treats play as something joyful and worth doing day after day.

Hope and the wish to connect with the unknown

Each named boat reaches out to an unknown person far away, showing the desire to connect beyond one's own village.

Dreams and aspirations

The paper boats stand for the child's dreams and hopes. At night, the dream boats float on and on with baskets full of dreams, suggesting that hopes do not end when the day does.

Message: something as simple as a paper boat can carry big hopes, and imagination can make the whole world feel like a friend.

What are the answers to the textbook questions?

Let us discuss I: completing the summary

The correct words for the eight blanks are:

1. stream
2. village
3. strange
4. shiuli
5. night
6. clouds
7. float
8. dreams

Note: The summary says the clouds are "like friends, racing" with the boats. In the poem, the friend is an unseen playmate in the sky who sends the clouds, which look like sails. The summary also says "another land", while the poem says only that the flowers will be carried safely to land in the night.

Let us discuss II to IV: theme, setting, tone and mood

II. The answer is (iv) 1, 2 and 4: innocence, imagination and playfulness. Ignorance does not fit, because the child is trusting, not ignorant, and travel does not fit, because the poem is about the child's hopes, not a journey the child makes.

III. True. The stream, the garden, the clouds and the stars make the setting natural and outdoors.

IV. The tone is gentle and wishful, and the mood is thoughtful.

Let us discuss V and VI: alliteration, repetition and imagery

V. Examples of alliteration are "big black letters" (b), "load my little boats" (l), "someone in some strange land" (s), "the sky sends" (s), "sleep are sailing" (s) and "Day by day" (d).

VI.1 The repetition of the words "day by day" and "on and on" emphasises the passage of time: the boats are sent every day, and in the dream they float on through the night. "One by one" can also be given, since it shows the boats being sent one after another.

VI.2 Imagery such as "white bulging sails" and "midnight stars" creates a clear picture in the reader's mind. Other possible answers are "big black letters", "blooms of the dawn" and "baskets full of dreams".

Let us discuss VII: matching the symbols

Let us think and reflect I: the extract about night

(i) The options are four sleeping figures: A lies curled on its side with an arm drawn up towards its head; B lies on its back with arms folded; C lies on its back with hands behind its head; D lies on its back with one arm raised.

Since the speaker buries his face in his arms, A is the closest match. None of the four figures shows a face fully hidden in the arms.

(ii) When night comes, the speaker is sleepy but still hopeful and calm, because his hopes for the boats carry on into his dreams. Hiding his face in his arms may also suggest a quiet longing as the day's play ends.

(iii) B. gentle. The fairies do a kind task: they sail the boats and carry the child's dreams.

(iv) The phrase suggests that the fairies of sleep are carefully carrying his dreams in their baskets.

Let us think and reflect II: longer answers

1. The poet writes his name and village on the boats so that anyone who finds them, even someone in a strange land, will know who sent them. It shows his wish to be known and to make a connection with people far away.

2. The child imagines a playmate in the sky sending clouds with bulging sails to race his boats, and dreams of the fairies of sleep sailing the boats with baskets of dreams.

3. The poet starts each idea from something real, such as writing a name, loading flowers or looking at clouds, and then adds something imagined: a stranger, a safe landing, a playmate. Because the real details are familiar, the imagined ones feel believable.

How are the Let us learn tasks answered?

I. Making phrases with "of"

The poem's phrases "blooms of the dawn" and "fairies of sleep" join two ideas with of. Words from Column 1 and Column 2 can be joined in the same way, after the example "wings of the wind". Many answers are possible. Some suitable phrases are:

• wings of the birds
• waves of the ocean
• dreams of the children
• songs of the birds
• glimmers of the stars
• cries of the children
• tears of the rain
• roars of the thunder
• roars of the ocean
• shadows of the clouds
• shadows of the evening

II. Sorting the parts of the day

The poem uses dawn, night and midnight for parts of the day. The sixteen words in the box can be sorted like this:

Noon, noontime, noonday and midday all name the middle of the day, when the afternoon begins. Nightfall, the time when night begins, can also be placed under Evening.

III. Matching opposites

Launch and halt are opposites in the sense of setting something moving and bringing it to a stop.

How are the listening and speaking tasks answered?

Let us listen: Sai and her father talk about origami

The student hears a conversation between a girl, Sai, and her father about origami, the art of paper folding. Sai is folding an origami crane, and her father explains that origami started in Japan over a thousand years ago and that the crane is a symbol of peace and long life in Japanese culture.

The true statements are 2, 3, 5 and 6.

Statement 6 uses the word enjoying, which the father does not use, but it is true in meaning, since he also agrees that origami is fun.

Let us speak: presenting an eco-friendly craft

The student makes a craft item from eco-friendly materials and presents it, covering an introduction, how it was made, why the student likes it, and a conclusion. A photograph beside the task shows a model of a small bird built from dry brown and orange leaves layered like feathers, with a small black eye, standing on a pale base.

One possible presentation, built on the book's phrases:

Today, I'm going to show you a leaf bird I made. This bird is made of dry fallen leaves, a twig and a cardboard base. It's brown and orange, small and round. It can be used to decorate a shelf. First, I started by collecting leaves from our garden. Then, I used paste to stick them on in layers like feathers. The most difficult part was to make it stand. This bird is special to me because nothing in it was bought. I hope you enjoyed seeing my craft and learning about it. Thank you for your attention.

How are the explore, writing and riddle tasks answered?

Let us explore I: shiuli flowers

The book notes that shiuli flowers often find a mention in Tagore's poems and are found in many parts of the country. Its photograph shows a heap of many small white flowers with orange centres and orange tube-like stalks.

The name of the flower in the student's own language is the student's own answer. For the follow-up task, the student lists trees or plants in the locality that have fragrant flowers, writes each name in the home language and in English, and draws and colours two flowers. One possible entry is the rose, written with its name in the student's language beside it.

Let us write: a diary entry on a rainy day

A diary entry is a personal record of a day, expressing the writer's thoughts, feelings and opinions. It should give the day, date and time, begin with a general sentence about the day or the writer's feelings, give details, and end with a final remark.

The book gives the opening: a Friday in July at 6:30 p.m., a humid day, and a wish for rain on the way home from school that comes true. One possible continuation:

Dark clouds rolled in just as I reached our lane, and big, cool drops began to fall. Soon water was rushing along the side of the road like a little stream. I folded two paper boats from an old notebook page, wrote my name on them, and set them afloat. One raced ahead while the other spun round and round. The air smelt fresh, and every leaf looked washed and shining. Today showed me that a rainy day can be the happiest day of all.

Let us explore II: the riddles

Each riddle describes a body of water. One set of answers, with the clues that point to it:

1. The sea (or the ocean): its water cannot be drunk, people watch the Sun set over it, it can be rough or calm, and dolphins and whales live in it.
2. A pond (or a lake): it is still but moved by the wind, its surface reflects the world, people can take a dip in it, and ducks, frogs and fish live in it.
3. A stream: it travels gently through valleys with a soft murmur, paper boats float on it in the rain, and it skips along, crystal clear.
4. A river: it has a bed and a bank, carries stories from high mountains to the oceans, and journeys far to meet the sea.

Riddle 3 links back to the poem, whose boats float down a running stream, and to the pre-reading word skipping. Beside the riddles, four children, two boys and two girls, each rest a hand on the chin, with question marks above their heads.

Glossary

• Running stream: a small stream of water that flows along quickly; in the pre-reading task, running is matched with speedily flowing.
• Strange land: an unknown and faraway place, where the child hopes someone will find the boats and learn who sent them.
• Shiuli: a flower found in many parts of the country that often appears in Tagore's poems; in the book's pictures it is small and white with orange centres.
• Blooms: flowers; the phrase "blooms of the dawn" links the child's shiuli flowers with the start of the day.
• Dawn: the first light of the morning and the start of a new day; its opposite in the chapter is dusk.
• Launch: to set a boat on the water so that it starts its journey; in the opposites task it is paired with halt.
• Bulging: swelling outwards, like the white sails the child sees in the clouds; its opposite in the chapter is shrinking.
• Playmate: a friend to play with; the child imagines an unseen playmate in the sky who sends the clouds to race.
• Lading: the load or cargo that a boat carries; in the poem, the lading is the fairies' baskets full of dreams.
• Fairies of sleep: gentle imagined beings who, in the child's dream, sail the paper boats under the midnight stars.
• Origami: the art of paper folding, which, as the listening conversation explains, started in Japan over a thousand years ago.
• Imagery: words that create pictures in the reader's mind, such as white bulging sails or midnight stars.
• Alliteration: the repetition of the same first sound in words close together, as in big black letters.
• Personification: giving human qualities or actions to something that is not human, as when sleep becomes fairies who sail boats.
• Diary entry: a personal record of one's own day, with thoughts, feelings and opinions, headed with the day, date and time.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The child floats the boats down a river. Correct: The boats go down a running stream, and stream is the right choice in the summary task.
• Misconception: The boats carry roses. Correct: They carry shiuli flowers from the child's garden, called blooms of the dawn.
• Misconception: The child can see the playmate in the sky. Correct: The child sees only the clouds and does not know which playmate sends them; the playmate is imagined.
• Misconception: The child sails in the boats at night. Correct: The child only dreams that the boats float on under the midnight stars, sailed by the fairies of sleep.
• Misconception: The fairies of sleep are mischievous or fearsome. Correct: They are gentle beings who carefully carry the child's dreams in their baskets.
• Misconception: The poem has a rhyme scheme and uses similes. Correct: It is written in prose-like lines without rhyme, and its comparisons are metaphors, since none uses "like" or "as".
• Misconception: In the listening task, Sai is making an origami boat. Correct: She is making an origami crane; the paper boat is her father's suggestion for next time.
• Misconception: People have made paper cranes for thousands of years. Correct: In the conversation, Sai asks if it has been hundreds of years and her father agrees; origami itself began over a thousand years ago.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. In "Paper Boats", the child writes his name and his village's name on the boats in big black letters, hoping that a person in some faraway, unknown land will find them and learn who he is. Why does the child write these details on the boats? [2 marks]

1. So that whoever finds a boat, even someone in an unknown, faraway land, can read who sent it and where the sender lives.
2. It shows the child's wish to be known and to connect with people far away, so each boat becomes a small message sent out into the world.

Q2. As the child launches his boats, he sees little clouds "setting the white bulging sails", and he wonders which unseen playmate in the sky has sent them to race his boats. What does the child imagine, and what does this show about him? [2 marks]

1. He imagines the clouds as sailing boats with white, swelling sails, sent by an unseen playmate in the sky to race his paper boats.
2. It shows his imagination and playfulness, and perhaps a wish for a companion, since his only playmate is an imagined one.

Q3. At night the child dreams that the fairies of sleep are sailing in his paper boats and that "the lading is their baskets full of dreams". In the pre-reading task, lading is matched with loading. (a) What does lading mean? (b) What kind of beings are the fairies of sleep? (c) What does the line suggest about dreams? [3 marks]

1. (a) Lading means the load or cargo that a boat carries.
2. (b) The fairies of sleep are gentle beings, which fits their kind task of carrying the child's dreams in baskets.
3. (c) Picturing dreams as cargo in baskets suggests that dreams are precious and are carried carefully from one place to another.

Q4. In "Paper Boats", the child writes his name and village on his boats, loads them with shiuli flowers, looks at the clouds and buries his face in his arms at night. He imagines a stranger finding the boats, the flowers landing safely in the night, a playmate in the sky racing cloud-sails against the boats, and the fairies of sleep sailing them under the midnight stars. Explain how the poet brings imagination and reality together. [4 marks]

1. Each real action leads to an imagined one: writing his name and village leads to the hope that someone in a strange land will find the boats and know him.
2. Loading real shiuli flowers from the garden leads to the hope that they will be carried safely to land in the night.
3. Looking at real clouds leads to imagining them as white sails, sent by a playmate in the sky to race the boats.
4. Burying his face in his arms at night leads to a dream of the boats floating on under the midnight stars with the fairies of sleep aboard; the familiar real details make the imagined ones easy to believe.

Q5. "Paper Boats" contains the phrases "Day by day", "float on and on", "big black letters" and "load my little boats". Identify two examples of repetition and two of alliteration among them, and explain the effect of each. [4 marks]

1. Repetition: "Day by day" repeats the word day, showing that the child sends boats every day, so the poem stresses the passage of time.
2. Repetition: "float on and on" repeats on, showing the dream boats' journey continuing without end through the night.
3. Alliteration: "big black letters" repeats the b sound, stressing how bold and clear the child's writing is.
4. Alliteration: "load my little boats" repeats the l sound, giving a soft music that suits the poem's gentle tone.

Q6. The tone of "Paper Boats" is gentle and wishful, and its mood is thoughtful. In the poem, the child speaks of little boats, flowers, little clouds and fairies, uses the word hope twice, wishes his flowers a safe landing, ends the line about the playmate in the sky with an exclamation mark, and dreams of gentle fairies of sleep under the midnight stars. Explain the tone and mood with reference to the poem. [5 marks]

1. The tone is gentle because the poem is built from soft, simple pictures such as little boats, flowers, little clouds and fairies, with no anger or fear.
2. The tone is wishful because the child keeps hoping: that a stranger will find the boats and that the flowers will land safely in the night.
3. The exclamation about the playmate racing the boats adds delight, keeping the tone light and happy rather than sad.
4. The mood is thoughtful because the reader is led to wonder, with the child, where the boats will go and who might find them.
5. The quiet ending, with the boats floating on under the stars in a dream, leaves the reader in a calm, reflective frame of mind.

Key takeaways

• "Paper Boats" by Rabindranath Tagore is a poem in Unit 3, Dreams and Discoveries, of Poorvi, the Grade 7 English textbook.
• A child floats paper boats down a running stream every day, with a name and village written on them in big black letters.
• The child hopes someone in a strange land will find the boats, and that the shiuli flowers aboard will land safely in the night.
• The child imagines the clouds as white bulging sails sent by an unseen playmate in the sky to race the boats.
• At night, the child dreams the boats float on under the midnight stars, sailed by gentle fairies of sleep with baskets full of dreams.
• The themes are innocence, imagination and playfulness, along with hope and the wish to connect with the unknown.
• The tone is gentle and wishful, the mood is thoughtful, and the poem is written in eight groups of prose-like lines without rhyme.
• Key devices are metaphor, personification, alliteration, repetition and symbolism: boats for hopes, shiuli flowers for purity and stars for the vast universe.

Test yourself

What does the child write on the paper boats?

The child writes a name and the home village's name on each boat, in big black letters.

What does the child load the boats with?

Shiuli flowers from the family garden, which the poem calls blooms of the dawn.

What does the child see in the clouds?

The little clouds look like white bulging sails, sent by an unseen playmate in the sky to race the paper boats.

Who sails the boats in the child's dream, and what do they carry?

The fairies of sleep sail the boats, and their cargo, or lading, is baskets full of dreams.

What is the opposite of "bulging", and of "lading", in the Let us learn task?

The opposite of bulging is shrinking, and the opposite of lading is emptying.

In the listening task, which origami object is Sai making, and what does her father suggest next?

Sai is making an origami crane, and her father suggests making an origami paper boat to float in the stream outside.